by Baden Hicks

My name is Baden Hicks, and I’m a co-leader of the Australian Psychedelic Society Melbourne chapter and also a medical cannabis patient and cannabis connoisseur. Cannabis has benefited my life in a big way, helping with PTSD symptoms, insomnia and chronic pain.

One thing I love about cannabis is the cannabis culture and the fact that cannabis can also be considered a psychedelic . It can complement other psychedelics for some people really well too.

The Australian Psychedelic Society’s Melbourne chapter has a community of people who use cannabis, with a lot of medical cannabis patients, and a Signal group to enable these medical cannabis patients to connect.

As someone who loves the cannabis culture and community, which is growing and a lot more out in the open since cannabis became medically legal in Australia in 2016, I am always on the lookout for updates and events for the community. A little while ago I saw there was online cannabis yoga that was done on Zoom. I was interested but could not attend that session because I had other commitments, and since then I have kept an eye out but did not find any upcoming sessions. So I decided, why not organise in-person cannabis yoga for our medical cannabis patients from the Australian Psychedelic Society’s Melbourne chapter?

Fast-forward a few weeks and I was out at a club and bumped into a mate Tommy who is a yoga instructor. I put the idea to him and he said he was really keen, and so it began: the organising of the first in-person cannabis yoga session.

It was arranged to be held at the Summer Healing centre in Brunswick with Tommy our instructor. I got there a bit early to get an idea of the space and prepare before I went down to meet everyone at 11am, with the idea that we’d all consume our cannabis before we went up to do the yoga at 11.30am.

We all had our cannabis and were all quite stoned as all seven of us squeezed very tightly into a very small elevator to go up to the level where we were doing the yoga. I accidently took us to the wrong level, where we all fell out of the elevator and then had to get back in. When we got back in, we went to the next level but when the door opened there was no floor to get off at and it was just a metal wall! One of the people in the lift said, ‘Oh no, this elevator is malfunctioning!’ So we pressed the ground level button, and it went down, and we all spilled out of the elevator. I then called Tommy and asked him if he could come down and take us up to the right floor as the elevator is malfunctioning (on the phone I was thinking Tommy probably thinks we’re all so stoned that we can’t even operate an elevator and had a bit of a smile on my face).

After a while Tommy came down (in the elevator) and we all started to squeeze into the elevator again, although 3 people didn’t want to get back in it and asked if we could let them in through the fire escape stairs. As we started to go up in the elevator it started to shake and came to a halt. It had broken down. WE WERE STUCK! In our cannabis-affected states we all started to wonder what to do. We pushed the emergency bell for five seconds and then waited, but nothing happened, so we then pressed the emergency intercom and a lady’s voice came over the intercom asking if we needed assistance. One of us spoke to her and explained the situation, but being stuck in an elevator tightly squeezed in with a bunch of people who were stoned, a few of us had the giggles and we were laughing in the background, and we figured the woman over the intercom might of thought we were pranking her and didn’t take us very seriously at first. We all tried to keep the laughter to a minimum (which was a bit of a challenge) and the woman on the intercom started to take us seriously but she was not that helpful, mainly because you could tell she really hadn’t had to deal with this situation before. After a number of times having to repeat answers to questions she had already asked, one of the people in the lift got the phone number to the building manager and gave them a call and they said they were going to have to send people out to help us get out of the lift but there could be a wait.

In the meantime, some of the other people that didn’t get in the lift called out to us and asked if we were stuck and we yelled out YES! One of the group told us later that he was thinking ‘I’m really stoned, should I be taking this seriously?’ and he did, he went to a doctors’ clinic that was part of the building and went up to the receptionist and said ‘we need help, there are people stuck in the lift which has broken down’. She then told him that she would quickly get the building manager’s number for him to call for help. Whilst she was off getting the building manager’s number, the group member was so stoned that he forgot what he was doing and got distracted and walked off!

Whilst the rest of us were stuck in the lift there was a mixture of emotions while we were thinking how long we could be stuck in there. A few of us were taking it very seriously whilst a lot of us couldn’t stop laughing and cracking jokes, which ended up giving us all the giggles at times. I’ll admit I was one of the ones who had a serious case of the giggles.

Whilst I had a serious attack of the giggles, I looked around the elevator and thought to myself this is a serious test to see who can hold their own when it comes to any paranoia which can be caused by cannabis, but everyone held themselves really well.

After a while in the elevator and a lot of serious talks about what we could do to get out and also a lot of laughs, the elevator started to go down without warning. It was a bit of a shock at first and we all wondered what was happening, but luckily it slowly went all the way down to the basement. As it arrived at the basement the doors remained closed and we were pushing the buttons over and over, hoping the door would open to let us out, but nothing happened, and we all started trying to work out how to open them. After a while someone pressed the open door button again and the doors opened and we all spilled out of the elevator in relief, grateful to be free from being squeezed into that small elevator and on solid ground. We made our way to the fire escape in the basement, which opened up to outside of the building and as we opened the door and I felt the fresh air and sunshine on my face, I had this feeling of a sense of freedom coming over me! We were all relieved, and I checked in with everyone to make sure they were alright and that it didn’t traumatise anyone or bring anything up for anyone.

Everyone said it was a little stressful at the time and were feeling a bit of an adrenaline from it but they were all alright, we all went back in to the building and met the others that stayed out of the lift and told them what had happened and we all had a good laugh whilst feeling very relieved.

After having a chat on the ground floor, we decided we would then go up to do the yoga although this time we took the stairs which had the fire escape doors held open with something from the others that had stayed outside of the lift. We got up to the floor where we were going to do the yoga, and all grabbed some yoga mats and a pillow and sat down. It was such a beautiful, calming space and we all had a bit of a chat and debrief around what had happened and what might have come up for us, which I think we all needed, and Tommy our instructor could see we needed. After some serious chats and some good laughs about it we then moved into the yoga. 

We began with some gentle stretches to loosen up the body, which was really nice and relaxing whilst being under the influence of cannabis. I reflected on the total polar opposites of experiences, from being in the elevator in a bit of a stressful situation whilst being affected by cannabis, to laying in a dimly lit room with gentle music playing, nice-smelling incense burning and laying down stretching (and having the room to stretch out ) and relaxing whilst under the influence of cannabis. It really was two totally different experiences at the opposite end of the scale.

Tommy then proceeded to take us into the yoga poses, slowly getting us to do more and more challenging ones. Before we started the yoga, I thought I would really struggle, as I’m not a very flexible person at all. But the way Tommy took us through the yoga, slowly loosening us up and slowly progressing with more challenging poses, really surprised me in terms of how flexible I actually was. Tommy knew how to help us really loosen up with his knowledge and skilfully, carefully planned yoga routine that he took us through, considering that we were all stoned.  As we were doing the yoga, Tommy talked to us about the different yoga practices and explained what they were for and told us some of the different styles and history of yoga. I was really impressed with his skill and in-depth knowledge around it all.

After a while of doing different yoga poses, Tommy then asked us how we were all finding it so far and asked if we wanted to do a bit more of a difficult routine. We all looked around at each other and agreed on going a bit harder. I thought I might really struggle with the more challenging yoga, but the way Tommy took us through it again really helped and I really surprised myself again. It was challenging and there were a lot of grunts and moans in the room, but they were satisfying grunts and moans. Also, we were all still stoned so every now and then someone would giggle, which would set us all off with the giggles.

As the yoga session was coming to an end and we were all sweaty and loosened up, I was reflecting on how great and relaxed I felt. It was just what I needed as I had had a lot of stress building up with things around work and general things in life. It was relieving and I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. I also felt very accomplished on how well I could do the yoga after Tommy carefully took us through the different poses and gently increased the intensity, and how much it was great to be part of this bonding experience with such a great community.

The session came to an end, and we all had some beautiful discussions about our wonderful experiences that we had had during the yoga session, and there were a lot of questions asked and answered with Tommy’s expertise. Everyone said how wonderful it was and how they would really like to do it again. With the experience overall, from using our cannabis all together as a group, to being stuck in the elevator stoned, to doing the yoga, it was all an experience that we had not had before and one we would not forget.

A lot of the members got Tommy’s details to do further group sessions and individual sessions because we were all so impressed at Tommy’s skill in guiding a yoga session, and members came up to me saying they would love it if I could organise more cannabis yoga sessions in the future.

We then decided to all go over to a nearby park and enjoy a bit more cannabis together whilst enjoying the nice weather and having some great discussions and sharing some more good laughs. Even though we got stuck in the elevator, it added to the overall experience and made it a really great bonding experience for all of us, and I looked around feeling a sense of achievement that even though we had some challenges, overall it was a really great positive experience for all. I started thinking about how to go about planning the next one to accommodate more people, as there had been a lot interested that could not attend on the day (and there has been a lot of interest since).

I’d really like to thank Tommy and the Australian Psychedelic Society for helping bring such a wonderful community of people together and giving me the opportunity to organise this experience for us all. I would also like to thank all the participants that attended and really held space and made it such a great experience also.

Tommy was really grateful that all of us were really respectful and great at holding space throughout the yoga and is keen to do more cannabis yoga in the future, so I hope to organise more to come… although next time I think we will all be taking the stairs.

Baden Hicks is a senior drug and alcohol lived and living experience peer support worker at Turning Point, one of the chapter leaders for the APS Melbourne chapter, part of the “Keep our city alive” campaign advocating for the second overdose prevention site in Melbourne, and an overdose prevention trainer. He is passionate about advocating for the rights of people who use drugs, for harm reduction, and decriminalization of all drugs, and believes the most dangerous thing about drugs is prohibition.